Battery-electric vs. fuel cell vehicle: Which is greener?

Many communities would be better off investing in electric vehicles that run on batteries instead of hydrogen fuel cells, in part because the hydrogen infrastructure provides few additional energy benefits for the community besides clean transportation. That’s according to a study in the November issue of the journal Energy by scientists at Stanford University and the Technical University of Munich (TUM). They compared battery electric cars versus hydrogen fuel cells in a hypothetical future where the cost of electric vehicles is more affordable. “We looked at how large-scale adoption of electric vehicles would affect total energy use in a community, for buildings as well as transportation,” said lead author Markus Felgenhauer, a doctoral candidate at TUM and former visiting scholar at the Stanford Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP). “We found that investing in all-e...